Even As I Wander
by WhatBecomesOfYou
Summary: She takes a bus out of Lima and decides to make a new life for herself in a new city. Too bad her past catches up to her. Quinn/Puck. Twoshot. Complete.
1. Even As I Wander

She waltzes out the door, head held firmly high, and boards the next bus _out_ of this little town. She can deal with the pointed stares of everyone at school – she's used to that, but for other, less judgmental, reasons.

She always felt as though her dreams rested in a higher place than a small little Ohio town.

This would be her chance to _prove_ it. Start a new life in a city where no one knew her name.

* * *

She pulls her jacket closer around her and gazes out the window at the blur of speeding cars, and drums her fingers against the glass, and prays for sunshine.

She knows that tucked inside her knapsack is a small pocket Bible that a touring pastor pressed into her hand with a smile and a whispered blessing when she was twelve, and she wonders if it could provide her with some form of guidance.

It always used to, after all.

She takes it out, cradles it in her hand gently, and opens to a random page. "Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisors they succeed."

Seeing as how this had been a spur-of-the-moment, throw-all-plans-to-the-wind decision, she felt _real_ comfort coming from the page. Advisors? _What_ advisors? _No one_ knew what she was doing.

Somehow, it feels better that way, and she closes the Bible, puts it back in her knapsack, and closes her eyes.

Dream of a better tomorrow, Quinn, she thinks, as she drifts off to sleep, her hand resting on top of her stomach.

* * *

It's somewhere around Fort Wayne when she realizes the full impact of what she has done. She imagines her fellow New Directions participants canvassing Lima, and maybe Dayton, and making contact with her sister in Cincinnati – it'd all be to no avail, but _they_ didn't know that.

Maybe when she reaches wherever she's going, she muses as she thoughtfully chews on a tuna sandwich, she can send them an e-mail, let them know that she's alive and didn't get chopped to pieces by a lunatic murderer.

Or, then again, maybe she won't.

* * *

When they reach Tomah, Wisconsin, it's the middle of the night – the moon hangs low in the sky, and a mass of twinkling stars makes it appear as though there is more light than there really is – and she wonders for the first time if her decision was such a good one. Second-guessing herself is not one of her stronger suits, but she's further from home now than she ever has been on her own, and for a fleeting moment, she wonders if her and her child will be better off.

She decides, almost as quickly, that it _is_ for the best, and shuffles her feet against the cold concrete of the parking lot as they switch busses.

* * *

A few days, and two time zones, later, and she steps off the bus in Washington. Seattle may not have been her ideal city, when she would play pretend when she was younger, it was always somewhere more glamorous – Los Angeles, New York, London – but Seattle would do. For now, at least.

One of the girls from her church youth group, Hailey, had moved out here after high school, and proclaimed it wildly to be an amazing place to live. Quinn was banking on it.

She rents a small apartment in a quiet neighborhood, finds a job at a local café, and settles into a new routine: early to bed, early to rise, makes Quinn's checking account balance rise. And when Eliza Noelle Fabray is born, the spitting image of her father, she dutifully fits the baby into her life, arranging with Hailey for child care, in return for Quinn cat-sitting on Hailey's weekend trips to Portland.

It's an uneasy balance, she figures, but it works for them. Her dreams and desires would have to take a raincheck.

* * *

She's been in Seattle for over a year now, serving drinks and sandwiches to innumerable people, when one day, in early May, she sees a familiar face sitting in her section, tapping the menu against the tablecloth. "Are you ready?" she asks, pasting a smile across her face.

He looks up at her – the eyes are _so _familiar, Eliza has his eyes – and glances at her name tag. "Yes," he pauses, "_Quinn_, I'm ready."

"What would you like?" She fears that he recognizes her, fears that even with a haircut she still looks too much like the scared high school girl that left Lima. At least she's not wearing Cheerios-regulation ponytails anymore.

"What's your wine cooler selection?" It's sly, and she sees a smirk tugging at the edges of his lips, and she feels anger and resentment and something distinctly tasting like bile bubbling up inside of her. God _damn_ him.

"I – I have to go," she stammers out, shoving her order pad in her apron pocket.

"You always do." It's not a simple statement; it's an accusation, she can hear it in his voice.

With three words, she feels everything shatter within her. "I _really_ have to go," she says, turning away from him.

"At least come say hi to the rest of us. You know, if you haven't become too cool here."

"The _rest_ of us?" she says. She sees her manager giving her a pointed stare from across the room. "What do you want, anyway?"

"Didn't you hear? The Lima Misfits made nationals."

"So where are they now?" she asks, grabbing her order pad from her apron. If he doesn't answer soon, he's getting an egg salad sandwich and lemonade.

"I ditched them. Wanted to check out the 'cool' side of this city," he says, and somehow, she doesn't quite believe him. "Roast beef and Coke."

* * *

She gets Daisy, one of the other waitresses, to deliver Puck his food, as she feels herself getting sick. She doesn't quite throw up, but there's the definite feeling that she could have, and she presses paper towels soaked in water against her forehead and wishes for an aspirin.

Instead, she gets Daisy handing her a note, with a name of a hotel and a room number scrawled across it in Puck's handwriting. "The guy at table seven wanted me to give this to you," she says, and Quinn can only meekly nod.

She calls Hailey, tells her that she had to pick up a second shift at work, "can you take care of Eliza overnight?" and instead hitches a bus – this sounds familiar, she thinks – but instead of heading away from everything, she's headed toward something.

For once.

* * *

She reaches the hotel, and asks the concierge for room 764. He points her to the elevator, and she sucks in a deep breath and takes the elevator up. There's a group of students sharing the ride with her – they're laughing and taking ridiculous photos of each other on their digital cameras, and she thinks that in a different life, this could be her right now. They bound off the elevator at the fifth floor, and she rides up in thankful, blissful, silence, alone with her thoughts.

Maybe it's too quiet being alone.

* * *

Standing at his door, she smoothes her hair back over one ear and says a little prayer, before knocking twice. He answers almost immediately, a towel around his neck. "I didn't think you'd come," he says, ushering her in.

"I'm full of surprises," she says, her eyebrow quirked.

He grunts in acknowledgement, or perhaps agreement, and she sits on one of the beds, as he sits on the other, facing her. "So," she says, "what made you ask me to come all the way down here just to make small talk in your hotel room?"

"I had to _see_ you," he says, picking at the loose threads of the comforter on the bed, and she runs her tongue over her lips. It all feels so – she searches for the word she's thinking of – _unexpected_. "It's been _so_ fucked up and crazy since you left."

She nods, and her mind flashes to Eliza, who's probably sleeping on Hailey's couch tonight.

"So why'd you do it, Fabray?"

"Why –"

"Why did you skip town with -" He twists his fingers in the comforter, and Quinn's fairly sure he's about to rip it in half without even trying. The unfinished question hangs in the air; they both know the last two words.

She digs through her purse, hands him a picture of mother and daughter, taken on Eliza's first birthday a few weeks before. "_This_ is why," she states simply, easing back on her hands as Puck, for the first time, sees his daughter's face.

There was something almost imperceptible – if it was _anyone_ else in the world, she'd say they were sniffling, but it's Puck, after all – and then he looks up at her. "What's her name?" he asks, an even tone in his voice.

"Eliza. Eliza Noelle Fabray."

"Eliza," he repeats, with a small, nearly invisible except to the trained eye, smile, "she looks a lot like me."

"She does," Quinn says quietly.

They sit in silence, Puck taking in the young mother and daughter in the picture, Quinn feeling uncomfortably out of place. "I should probably go," she says, standing up, "you can keep the picture."

"Are you coming to our performance?" he asks. "You should."

"When is it? I'll see if I can trade shifts or something."

"Friday night."

"I'll be there," she says, turning to walk out the door.

"Quinn?"

"Yeah?"

"Bring Eliza."

She nods, almost dismissively, as she opens the door. Turning back for a moment, she sees Puck staring at the picture, and she smiles as she closes the door behind her and walks out to the elevator.

Friday night was going to be _interesting_, to say the least.

-_to be continued_-


	2. I'm Keeping You In Sight

It's lightly raining late that Friday afternoon, as Quinn and Eliza step off the bus at the convention center – raining enough where Quinn's face is framed by scattered raindrops, not enough as to where she wishes she had her umbrella.

She bounces Eliza on her hip, and Eliza laughs. "Let's go in?" Quinn asks. She knows not to expect a response, but a large smile crosses her daughter's face, and maybe, just maybe, it's the answer she needs to hear.

* * *

They take their seats, the curtain rises, and she loses herself to the performances. The choir from Arizona, she thinks, will probably win – they have the energy, the enthusiasm, and she imagines that nothing else tonight can top their performance of "Holding Out for a Hero."

She _knows_, though, without even paying attention, when New Directions comes on stage. And, clear as day, she hears Artie's voice soaring through the rafters – "_Once I rose above the noise and confusion, just to get a glimpse beyond the illusion_" – and she feels like she's back home in Lima, that none of the past year and a half or so had even happened. And then she hears Eliza cooing and she snaps back to reality.

_She_ should be up there on that stage. Instead, she grew up in the blink of an eye, and she wouldn't take back a moment of it, not for the world, but she's getting a glimpse of what she could have had.

She applauds until her hands hurt, stands until her feet ache, and she wishes she had stopped at the florist by her apartment to pick them up a bouquet. They'd deserve it.

* * *

She and Eliza are sitting in a bench in the lobby – results will come out in the morning, and the anxiety in the room could be cut with a knife - when she sees a familiar brunette head bobbing its way over to her. "_Quinn_? Is that _you_? What are you _doing here_?" Rachel asks, her voice rising at the end of each sentence, to the point where she nearly shouts the last two words. Like sailors to a siren's call, the other members of New Directions walk over when they hear her.

"Surprise," Quinn says, a little flatly.

Finn offers her a wane smile, which she reciprocates. "Is this –" he asks, picking up Eliza.

"It is," she says, and Eliza becomes the hot topic of the group, passing from one set of hands to another.

Rachel offers to burn Quinn copies of "Broadway Babies, Volume 1 and 2"; Kurt and Mercedes make an offer to take Eliza clothes shopping – because "no child shouldn't be able to be fashionable" – before they leave Seattle on Sunday; and Artie and Tina exchange a pointed look or two. The chaos and confusion allows Quinn and Finn to sink into the background.

"She looks like Puck," Finn says, watching Brittany precariously balance Eliza.

"She does."

"Are you happy?"

Quinn runs her fingers along the seam of her pants, feeling the fabric ripple under her touch. "I got away because I couldn't be happy in Lima. Not anymore, not after –"

"Yeah, but are you happy _now_? You, of any of us, could do more," he says, "Rachel too." It's more of an afterthought, but her expression after hearing Rachel's name shifts nearly imperceptibly from a smile to a flat line.

"I put my dreams on _hold_."

He stands up, stares at her, and for a second, he looks like she's hurt him all over again. "You've _changed_, Quinn Fabray. Seattle's changed you," he says.

She starts to say "Seattle hasn't changed me, _Eliza_'s changed me; I have to think of two people now and _not_ just myself," but he's already walked away, fading into the throng of people.

They're in two completely different worlds now, her and Finn.

* * *

The crowd thins out, and against a back wall, she sees Puck. She walks over to him, making sure out of the corner of her eye that Eliza's safe – she's firmly in Will's arms, so Quinn feels secure in the knowledge. "I came, like you asked," she says, sticking her hands in her pockets, "Eliza's with Will."

"Schuester has my child?" From where they stand, they have a good perspective of Will and Eliza. She nods, and he walks over, talks to Will for a moment or two, and takes his child into his arms for the first time.

Quinn smiles as the scene unfolds.

Father and daughter, together.

* * *

Quinn, Puck and Eliza walk back to the hotel in near-silence; Puck carries Eliza, Quinn casts the occasional glance over at the two.

It's _nice _to have someone else in her world again.

* * *

Mike, who turns out to be Puck's roommate on the trip, leaves the hotel room when he sees them enter. "Dude, I'm _not_ sticking around for the fireworks," he says, grabbing his coat and running out the door in a flash, "work it out by yourselves."

Quinn arches her eyebrow and tucks Eliza into one of the beds. "What was that about?" she asks.

"They think we're going to have a fight tonight," he says, with a smirk tugging at his lips, "but only if you _want_ one, Fabray."

She shakes her head, and rolls her eyes. Even with a daughter, albeit one he hadn't met until earlier that night, he was _still_ the same Puck she knew back then.

"Eliza needs a father," she says, barely above a whisper.

"_I'm_ her father," he says, grabbing her hand. The caress of his own slightly rougher hand against her softer one, the touch that had been the spark of everything, makes her mind spin and she forces herself to sit down again before she falls to the floor. "If anyone's going to be her father, it should be _me_."

Quinn shakes her head vigorously. "We live two thousand miles apart," she says, "how are you going to do that?"

"Graduation's in a month," he says, "but if you say the word I'll stay –"

"_No_, Puck," she says, "graduate. _Seattle_ can wait." What she _wants_ to say is that she and Eliza can wait, they've waited for over a year, and they can wait as long as they need to. But she doesn't say it.

Reading between the lines is a skill that she forces people to use often with her.

* * *

They talk long into the night, gravitating closer, and her head droops against his shoulder. She falls asleep there, and Puck picks her up, careful to avoid her swinging feet, and lays her next to Eliza. He spoons behind Quinn, and the three of them fall asleep together.

Around four or so in the morning, Mike pops his head in, sees them sleeping, and decides that _maybe_ begging for the floor in Finn's room would be a better idea.

* * *

Quinn wakes up that morning, and she knows something isn't right because she can hear snoring coming from next to her, and Mr. Yates next door doesn't snore _that_ loudly. She turns over and sees Puck, asleep, and if it wasn't for his snores, it'd be a perfectly tranquil scene.

She falls back asleep, her arms wrapped protectively around Eliza.

* * *

It's later that morning when she awakes for a second time and sees Puck standing next to the bed, an odd sort of smile on his face. "Eggs?" he asks, holding a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other.

"Puck, you didn't have to bring me breakfast in bed, you know."

"I ate most of it on the way up."

"Pig," she says, with an easy laugh. She takes the fork from him and wipes it against his shirt before eating. Eliza ends up sharing some of the eggs. It's so much different, being with Puck, especially now. She feels lighter inside. It feels good.

* * *

She buys a bouquet on the way to the results ceremony. Big, beautiful flowers of all colors and varieties, it makes her smile just to look at.

New Directions takes second; the Arizona group won it all.

She hands each of them a flower from the bouquet, and keeps one for herself. It could have been her, after all.

* * *

Her and Puck walk down the pier later that afternoon, breathing in the ocean air and talking idly. Eliza is being taken care of by some combination of New Directions members – Quinn isn't sure if she's more afraid for Eliza, or for them.

"You think you'd like it here?" she asks, kicking absent-mindedly at a pebble.

"_You _could start over; I'll do fine."

"_I_ left without telling anyone."

"I could too."

"You wouldn't."

"And who says I can't pull off what you did?" he says, "I could, you know, and _no one_ would know."

"I'd _know_," she says, and speeds up her pace.

"That's the _point_, Fabray," he says, catching up to her, "_you_'d know, no one else would have to."

She stops and turns to face him – a million thoughts running through her mind, a thousand words at the tip of her tongue – and she stands silent.

* * *

Time freezes for a minute, and she's looking at him, _really_ looking at him, and he's looking at her, and it feels like they're the only two people sharing this moment. When his arm loops around her waist, pulling her close, she sucks in a deep breath.

And they kiss, his hand running up the back of her neck and she releases the breath as they separate. She's smiling, he has an infuriating combination of a smirk and a smile, and she wonders to herself – "why did it take us this long?"

* * *

A month and a half later, she stands waiting at the bus station. He steps off the bus, she greets him with a kiss and an embrace, and together, they carry his luggage to Hailey's waiting car.

It isn't going to be easy.

It never was going to be.

But damn if they aren't going to try their hardest first.

-_fini_-


End file.
